This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

If my *.msf files are gone and I can't find them anywhere, is there any chance that they can be recovered?

more options

I use TBird for POP3 mail. A few months ago, I backed up the TBird folder w/ profile to an external HDD, then moved the folder w/ profile from my old PC over to a NAS and re-directed TBird from the old location to the new location. No problems at all.

Two nights ago, I installed TBird on a new laptop and attempted to connect to the profile on the NAS. I couldn't get it to work, so I aborted and called it a night. Yesterday, I logged into my old PC, fired up TBird...and it was empty. I checked the NAS and my profile, mailbox and all *.sbd files are still there, but it looks as though previous day's futzing with the new laptop wiped out all the *.msf files.  :-(

I ran a search on the NAS for *.msf and nothing comes up. Is there any way to recover the lost/deleted files or am I pretty much SOL? (I still have the back-up, but it would be great to get back the mail that's been lost since then.)

Thanks in advance for your assistance.  :-)

I use TBird for POP3 mail. A few months ago, I backed up the TBird folder w/ profile to an external HDD, then moved the folder w/ profile from my old PC over to a NAS and re-directed TBird from the old location to the new location. No problems at all. Two nights ago, I installed TBird on a new laptop and attempted to connect to the profile on the NAS. I couldn't get it to work, so I aborted and called it a night. Yesterday, I logged into my old PC, fired up TBird...and it was empty. I checked the NAS and my profile, mailbox and all *.sbd files are still there, but it looks as though previous day's futzing with the new laptop wiped out all the *.msf files. :-( I ran a search on the NAS for *.msf and nothing comes up. Is there any way to recover the lost/deleted files or am I pretty much SOL? (I still have the back-up, but it would be great to get back the mail that's been lost since then.) Thanks in advance for your assistance. :-)

All Replies (2)

more options

msf files are summaries. They are not your message store.

For each msf file. there is an accompanying file with the same name but no extension, e.g. Inbox.msf and Inbox.

Those extensionless files are the ones you need.

more options

Thanks for the reply. If there were any extensionless files corresponding to the msf files, they're all gone too. Which makes me think I am SOL.